Time is relative
by doctorpewdiepie
Summary: When Joel and Ellie fall into a hole, what awaits them? (I suck at summaries) rated T for language
1. What just happened?

Joel and Ellie creep through the abandoned parking lot, listening hard for infected or bandits. Standing up when Joel deemed the place empty. They'd come here with no goal, as when they got to Tommy's place, it was in ruins.

"Hey! Come look at this! This is really deep!" Joel hears Ellie's excited voice echoing through the place. Joel slowly jogs over to Ellie, who is peering into a huge hole. "Don't fall in" Joel warns her as she leans close.

"psh, does it look like I'm five?" Ellie questions. Joel rolls his eyes, lookig into the hole. "Even with my flashlight, I can't see the bottom" Joel says incredously.

As Ellie turns to walk away, Joel sees something coming out of the pit. His lips part to utter a warning when the thing reaches up and grabs Ellie. "JOEL!" she manages to scream before she gets pulled down. "I'm coming for you!" Joel shouts as he jumps into the abyss.

Feeling like she was grabbed. Falling. Waiting for a quick and painless death at the bottom. Nothing. Ellie opens her eyes, slowly, feeling as if she hadn't for a long time. Joel lies a few meters away from her, his hair strangely browner and shorter than before.

She lies there, struggling to suck in oxygen. It feels like someone punched her in the gut. When she manages to speak, she utters "Joel"

"Joel" she says, louder this time. His eyes open with a groan. "Where the hell are we?" Joel asks, bringing Ellie's attention to her surroundings. Damp moss lays beneath them. Trees all around. Ellie gets up, brushing her jeans off.

Ellie looks at Joel's face and gasps. "What?" Joel says. "Y-you aren't o-old anymore" Ellie stammers, wide eyed. Joel pulls his knife out of his pocket, looking at himself. He looked as he did twenty years ago. "What in the name of -" he doesn't finish her sentence. His eyes dart to his watch. It wasn't broken. He stares for a while.

Joel gets to his feet. How did they get to a forest? He gets up and looks around. Their backpacks were a good ten metres away. He goes and retrieves them.

"here" he says as he hands Ellie's backpack to her. "Thanks" she says, taking it and putting it on her back. They walk through the forest puzzling just how the hell they got there. He pauses to look through his backpack. As he reaches his hand into the main pocket he freezes.

He feels supple leather against his fingers. He takes the object in his hand and pulls it out. "What the hell?!" he exclaims as he pulls his wallet out of his bag. "what is that?" Ellie says, pointing to the wallet. "It's a wallet. It's used to store money. How the hell-" his voice trails off.

He opens his wallet. It has various bills and his cards in it. The cards are clean and new. The bills are crisp. Something is wrong.

"We need to get out of this forest" Joel says abruptly. Ellie, startled by Joel's low voice cutting into the silence, quickly says "Why?! Is there something here?!". "No. There might be something outside of this forest." Joel says with an edge of doubt in his tone.

They hike through the forest until they start to hear weird sounds. Laughing and voices. "Put your weapons away and give me the rifle." Joel orders. Ellie, confused, complies quickly. Joel does the same with his own weapons.

Joel takes the rifle and dissassembles it, putting the parts into his backpack. "Now no matter what, no attacking people" Joel instructs, with an idea of what is happening. "Why?" Ellie says, a little annoyed Joel isn't telling her anything.

"Just... Follow me". Joel walks until they get to the edge of the forest. They walk out of the forest, revealing a park, with people, talking and children playing on a playground playing. Joel picks up a newspaper on a bench. He takes in a huge breath. He realeases it with an explanation, "We have somehow got ourselves to friday, September 27, 2013".

"But, isn't that a day after the world went to hell?" Ellie asks. "Yeah" Joel breathes out. "Do you know where we are?" Ellie says, staring at the happiness of the children playing. "Yeah... Three blocks from my house." Joel says.

Sarah! Joel suddenly remembers with a start. "We have to go to my house" Joel says with a newfound urgency. Ellie nods, understanding the flash of hope in Joel's eyes. They briskly walk until they get to his house.

"Damn it!" Joel growls, realizing he doesn't have his keys. He remembers how he found his wallet in his bag and looks there. He produces his keys after a minute of groping around. He opens the door and goes inside. He quickly runs up the stairs, and into Sarah's room. Her stuff is there, everything is fine, but where is Sarah?

Joel hears a scream from downstairs. It wasn't from Ellie. Joel runs down the stairs to see Sarah, looking wide eyed at Ellie. "Sarah!" Joel says as he runs to her.

He hugs her, eyes streaming with twenty year's worth of unshed tears."uh, dad?" Sarah says confusedly. Calming himself down, he looks at Sarah. "what is it?" he asks. "Where were you all day? And who is she?" Sarah says, pointing at Ellie.

"It's a long story hon" Joel explains. "This is Ellie. She's going to live here now". "Ok, nice to meet you" Sarah says to Ellie. "Likewise" she answers. Joel was a tiny bit puzzled as to why Sarah didn't care that someone she had never met before is moving in.

"What was that thing that pulled Ellie into the hole? And how did we travel in time?" Joel muttered to himself before bed.

Ellie was sleeping on the couch. Everything seemed peaceful. Joel woke up several times in the middle of the night, being startled by noises that are normal to living with people, but twenty years of caution and danger wired him to be a very light sleeper.

"calm down, I'm safe here" Joel reassures himself. He takes a deep breath and settles himself down.

He wakes up in the morning, feeling tired but not able to sleep longer. He checks the clock. It was 7:38. He goes to the bathroom and brushes his teeth. He stops short at the sight of himself in the mirror. He looked exactly like himself 20 years ago. Staring at himself strongly, he leaves the bathroom. Yawning, he starts to sort out his backpack. Some things were missing, but unimportant things like a few blades and some ammo. Joel didn't notice. Joel still didn't trust how things went, but pushed the thought away.

He found some other of his modern items in his bag like his phone and sunglasses. After sorting and putting away his things to their respective areas around the house, he checks a clock. 9:06. Joel starts to make breakfast. He opens the fridge, a refreshing sight after no electricity for 20 years.

Ellie wakes up to a delicious smell. Mouth watering, she gets off the couch and walks toward the kitchen where Joel was cooking. "What'cha making?" Ellie asks curiously. "ham and eggs" Joel replies, a little excited himself. Ellie hears a weird bubbling noise. "what's that?" she says, darting to the other side of the kitchen. "coffee maker" Joel says. "cool" Ellie says slowly while watching the dark liquid drip into the pot.

Ellie heard light footsteps on the stairs and instinctively whipped around. She calmed herself down and told herself that there is no reason to panic anymore. Sarah comes down the stairs rubbing her

eyes. "Good morning" Joel says as she walks into the kitchen. "mornin' dad and Ellie" Ellie smiles at her. She is just so _cute. _

Ellie wanders out of the kitchen and Sarah follows. "wanna see my room?" Sarah asks Ellie, already pulling her up the stairs. "uh, Sure" Ellie says. She and Sarah enter a room, pink and decorated with posters. She looks behind the door and sees a giraffe plush. She looks at it and before she can say anything, "breakfast's ready girls!" Joel calls from the kitchen.

Ellie and Sarah both run down the stairs to the table, where there are 3 plates filled with food and 2 cups of a strange orange liquid Ellie has never seen before. They sit down and start eating. Joel and Ellie both eat quick and a lot, as it has been years since Joel has eaten anything fresh and Ellie has never had anything like it.

Joel takes a sip of his coffee, smiling as the bitter coffee flowed doen his throat. He was fond of coffee, having it every morning before the world messed up.

After they had all eaten their fill, they sit back, drinking. "what is this anyway?" Ellie asks, holding up her drink. "It's orange juice" Sarah says, "Oranges! Coooool" Ellie says.

Sarah giggles. "Where did you come from Ellie?" Sarah asks. "Boston, I guess?" "Wow, thats far away" Sarah says, curious now. "Don't you miss your parents?" Sarah asks innocently. Ellie and Joel freeze.

Ellie's expression darkens. "they have been gone for a long time" Ellie says slowly. "Oh. I'm sorry." Sarah apologizes after seeing her expression. "It's fine, asking means you're being curious, which is learning" Ellie says with a smile.

"The first day of school is on friday." Joel says, breaking the silence. "Sarah, you know what to do, just walk to school and do whatever you need to do" "Ok, dad" she says while standing up to put her dishes away and go upstairs to brush her teeth and wash her face.

"So Ellie, you are going to have to go into ninth grade this year." Joel says gravely. "Why? Can't I just stay home?" Ellie argues. "It's the law, Ellie" Joel answers. "Ok, so what will I have to do?" Ellie asks. "Your going to high school, there will be drama and a lot of other stuff that you are probably not expirenced with. You will be with people. Lots of them. No attacking them or cursing at school." Joel runs Ellie through many rules.

Joel starts to explain the acedemic part. "So, you have to wake up at 7:00 to get ready and walk to school. Your school starts at 8:40. You can ask around for information, there will be a lot that you won't will also have to walk home from school."

Ellie nods, absorbing as much as she can. "Ok. I think I will be able to do this."

**HAI GUYSS! Thx for reading! Now on to the serious schtuffs. 1. If it feels like things are going by too fast, then damn. 2. I tried my best to have Sarah not like Duck in the walking dead video game (play it!) (BTW, Duck is an insensitive little kid that is so annoying) but im bad at writing, so forgive me. 3. It's hard to have Ellie not knowing stuff but not dumb. It's weird. BAI MY SURVIVORS;)**


	2. Malls and things

_**His chapter will have lots of refrences. I had too much fun on this chapter XD And thank you all for the reviews. They mean a lot. So without further adooo**_,

Ellie rolls her eyes at Joel. "I know all this stuff, I went to school before." Ellie says as Joel was about to explain more. "Oh, right." Joel mutters awkwardly.

"Although I won't know what everyone learned last year, because we started our journey one year ago. Or 20 years in the future, whatever you like." Ellie says.

"Well it was just grade 8, the first year of high school. Grade 8 is pretty easy because kids come from lots of different elementary schools and most of the work is review. Also, even if I wanted, I couldn't teach you anything because technically, my mind is 48 years old and even when I was 30, I couldn't even remember what they taught us." Joel explains. "Well thanks" Ellie says, rolling her eyes.

Ellie freezes, realizing. "you are 48 years old!?" Ellie exclaims. Joel frowns, "Well my mind I guess is. But my physical body is 27 years old right now".

"Wow, this is so damn confusing" Ellie huffs. Joel leans back, huffing also. "Sure is" Joel agrees.

Sarah comes down the stairs, wearing her favourite Sherlock T-shirt and blue jeans. "aren't you going to change, Ellie?" Sarah asks, walking down the stairs.

Ellie freezes. Damn, she didn't think of that. "She doesn't currently have anything to wear, but we're going to take her shopping for stuff today" Joel says. "Yay! Do you like shopping?" Sarah asks Ellie.

"Never been" Ellie shrugs, "I've lived a sheltered life" . "Don't worry, it's going to be fun!" Sarah enthusiastically says. Ellie grins, "can't wait to go"

"Well no use waiting here, lets go!" Joel exclaims. Ellie notices that since they got here, Joel has been much less hardened. The kind light in his eyes that was just a speck is now a spark, growing. Ellie smiles, following Joel and Sarah out the door to the car.

The car was old, but not as old as the cars she had seen. They get in the car and Joel starts driving.

When they get to the mall, Joel parks while all the while Ellie is staring out of the window happily, staring at all the people. They get out of the car and into the main building.

"Woah" Ellie gasps as she looks around, looking at all the people and the noise. "Cool isn't it?" Sarah asks, looking at Ellie. "Yeah" is all she can manage. Sarah laughs.

Joel sighs happily. He is a little scared, only used to having whatever happiness he can manage taken away from him. Here he is now, with his two girls. "We'll walk around until you find something you like" Joel suggests. "Ok cool" Ellie answers.

After 3 minutes of walking, Ellie sees a store that catches her eye. "lets go there" she says, pointing at the store which was called _The gallery_. They walk in and Ellie looks around, taking it all in.

A guy with purple hair that covers his eyes is sweeping and a young brown haired girl is at the cash register, looking through a pamphlet for a art gallery. A girl with almost artificial but natural blonde hair is sitting on one of the blocks in the shop for seating.

"so, look around until you find something you like. You would need, maybe a small for most clothes" Joel says. Ellie finds a considerable amount of clothes she likes. Sarah helps by using her unusually good fashion sense. "so, the changing room is over there, go try things on and see if they fit and if they fit and you like it, we'll get it" Joel points to the changing room.

Ellie comes out of the changing room ten minutes and deposits it on Joel. "Here" she says, her and Sarah giggling at Joel's startled expression. He goes to the counter to pay.

The girl with long brown hair scans all the clothes and Joel pays. Joel notices that put a dip in his money. Joel thinks about work. He has to go to work on Monday. _Damn_.

"why don't we get something to eat?" Joel suggests. "sure, I'm starving" Ellie says. Sarah nods furiously. They stroll to one of Joel's favourite places to have lunch, _The Walking Bread_ diner.

Ellie gasps, astounded that you can just pay and have tasty fresh food delivered to you at your table. "this is a resturant, right?" Ellie asks, curious. "we learned about these in class, I never thought I would ever eat in one" Sarah giggles, "you surely are strange" Sarah says to Ellie. "well, I have my ways" Ellie says, smiling at her.

They are led to their tables, where the waitress gives them menus. They open theirs to see plenty of tasty sounding food choices. The waitress comes. "what would you like to drink today?" she says pleasantly. "A chocolate milk for me please" Sarah says. "A Sprite for her and a coffee for me" Joel says. The waitress leaves. "What's sprite? I've seen vending machines that have sold them, is it good?" Ellie says, speeding through the words.

"Slow down. You will like the drink but be prepared. Sprite is carbonated, it will have a weird texture..kind of like tiny explosions." Joel explains. "cool!" Ellie exclaims. The waitress comes back with their drinks. Ellie takes a tiny sip and immeadiately breaks into a huge smile. "Wow. That. Is . Exilirating" Ellie says, breathing deeply.

"Ellie, look at the menu and see if here is anything you want" Joel says, breaking Ellie out of her sprite-stupor. "I'll have the linguine alfredo" Sarah says, closing her menu. Ellie stares stupidly at her menu. She finds a word she knows. Hamburger. She had always wanted to try one. "I'm going to have the back-on and cheese hamburger" Ellie says proudly, happy that it all sounded right. "It's bacon" Joel corrects, holding in a laugh. Ellie turns red. "Well, I don't care, it's all food anyways" she says, pouting.

The waitress comes and takes their orders. As she writes things down, baseball cap keeps slipping over her eyes. It's white with 2 blue stripes with a capital D in the middle. The waitress leaves.

"What's that?" Ellie asks, pointing at Sarah's drink. "It's chocolate milk, wanna try some?" Sarah says, sliding her drink to Ellie. Ellie takes a sip. "thats good stuff" Ellie says. Taking her own drink, Ellie takes small sips until she is used to to it. Ellie had never had milk, only heard of it. Like many things, she had not ever eaten it herself.

The waitress comes back with a tray of food. She sets them down and they start eating. "Woah, slow down Ellie. Breathe" Joel says, interrupting Ellie's meal. "Ok, ok, sure" Ellie says as she starts eating again.

Bellies full and happy, they head home after lunch. Entering the house, Sarah suggests to Ellie, "wanna play ps3 with me?". "Uh.. Sure, but you'll have to teach me everything" Ellie says.

Joel chuckles and heads to a room that had nothing in it but an empty closet and desk. He then goes to the basement, taking the spare bed that he was going to throw away earlier and taking it upstairs to the room.

After about 2 hours, Joel manages to get the bed up to Ellie's room. He takes some clean sheets, blankets, and a pillow and puts them on their places on the bed. He takes Ellie's new clothes and puts them in her closet. He checks the clock. 5:00pm. Joel goes downstairs. He goes to the living room where Sarah and Ellie are, playing on the ps3.

"Scootch" he says to them as he sits down on the couch. The girls are playing Snoopy and the red baron. "Darnit!" Ellie yells as she crashes lucy. "this is hard to control" "well, you just have to get used to it" Sarah instucts.

They play for another 2 hours, switching the games from Snoopy to other games, Ellie equally bad at all of them. Joel gets up to start making dinner. When he finishes, he calls the girls to eat. "do you want to personalize your room tomorrow?" Joel asks Ellie as they eat. "like painting the walls?"Ellie asks. "yeah" Joel says. A smile lights up on Ellie's face. "That would be fun" Ellie says, the smile unbroken.

"I'm going to get ready for bed. You girls can do whatever until 10:00, then you need to get ready for bed" Joel says, collectin the dishes. "Ok" Ellie and Sarah say in unison. Joel wonders how Sarah would have warmed up to Ellie so quickly, but it was like they clicked immediately.

Joel pulled his blanket over himself, it was feeling unusually cold for Texas in september.

**AAND THATS THE END OF CHAPTER 2 SOME QUICK NOTES:**

**1. I'm canadian, there is no middle school so excuse some weird school systems**

**2. I tried to make it go slower, but i'm not good at writing so.. Yeah.**

**3. Feedback helps, so if I'm doing something wrong, please point that out**

**4. It's the weekend, so I will update often, it will slow down pretty dramatically over the week, because of... Things.**

**BAI SURVIVORS**!

_**THX SOO MUCH FOR READING! :D**_


	3. Colours and Spaghetti

Ellie wakes up to birds singing their dawn chorus. She lays there, listening and wondering. She still can't get over the fact that they travelled in time, or even to a different universe! _I don't think me nor Joel will ever stop wondering. _

She clears her throat and gets out of bed. The pajamas that she got yesterday is silky against her skin. She sighs with contentment. She can get used to living like this, no worries of dying, getting infected,( well, that wasn't a huge issue for Ellie, but Joel could still get infected), being ripped apart and eaten, the list goes on.

She goes the the washroom and brushes her teeth. She had tasted mint leaves before, but had never used toothpaste. She resists the urge to swallow it.

She goes downstairs, using the morning to herself to explore. She walks unil she gets to a glass sliding door. It was weird to see glass so clean, not yellowed, warped or broken. She opens the door, deeply inhaling the fresh air. Not as fresh as the woods in 20 years, beacuse pollution and all that had ceased in her "time".

She sits down on one of the chairs outside, pulling her legs up and hugging her knees to her chest. Her mind wanders. Joel slides the door open, making Ellie jump. "Agh, dammit Joel" Joel laughs, sitting in a chair next to Ellie.

A few minutes pass. Ellie breaks the silence. "how did we get here?". "I don't know, and I don't think we ever will" Joel answers with a sigh. Ellie sighs, annoyed at not knowing, but she can't be picky with the life she has now.

They stare into the woods beyond the fence that borders the house. Their silence cleared the path for the music. The sound of nature, all coming together. The harmony between the creatures that call.

Joel and Ellie hear it every morning, the music that wakes them up, the music that they listen to while waiting for the other person to say that they were awake.

Sarah opens the glass door, startling both of them. "boo" she says, seeing as she scared them both. Joel and Ellie start laughing, Sarah joining in soon after.

Joel and Ellie get off their chairs and Joel goes to make breakfast while Ellie goes to change and take a shower. Ellie steps into the shower. She sees three knobs, one blue, one red and one that was sort of star shaped.

She pulled the star shaped knob and it jerked forward, making Ellie stumble. _Okay, that's a start. So the blue one is cold water, and the red one is hot. _

She had never had a shower before, the way she always got clean was to bathe in a stream or lake. She pulls the blue knob but nothing happens. She twists it, and suddenly ice cold water rushes out of the tap above her.

She screams, and Sarah runs into the bathroom. "What's wrong?!" She asks, when she sees Ellie fumbling with the cold water tap she laughs. She reaches her hand in and turns it off.

"thanks" Ellie manages, teeth chattering. "Umm, need help on how to use the shower?" Sarah asks. "Yeah, that would be g-great"

"So, this is the shower knob. You should pull it after you get the water temperature right. This is the hot water, and the cold." Sarah explains. "okay, thanks" Ellie says as Sarah turns to leave. "No problem" She says.

Ellie turns the shower knob. She then turns the hot and cold until she likes the temperature. She turns the shower knob again, and the nice warm water streams out of the shower head and onto her. She sighs, happy that she did it right.

After her shower she heads out of the bathroom in her towel and into her room. She dries herself and gets dressed. She goes downstairs to see the table with 3 plates of food. Joel and Sarah are already eating. Ellie sits down and takes her fork. She glances at the clock. 9:20am. She starts eating. The food is rich and good, the only time she ever got food like this is if Joel kills something good.

When they all finished their meals and Joel did the dishes, Joel suggests that they start on planning Ellie's wall. They plan until they come up with a nice forest, much like the ones Joel and Ellie have travelled through. Ellie doesn't say it out loud, but Joel knows it will be for the memories of the forests they have been through.

Once they have decided on the colours, Joel, Sarah, and Ellie hop into the car and they go to the local paints store. Once they have picked out the colours, they go home.

Joel goes to the basement to grab paintbrushes and a screwdriver to open the cans of paint. Going up the stairs, he looks at the paintbrushes in their bag. There seems to be more then he had shrugs to himself and walks into the room.

After a struggle to open the paint, they start painting. Starting with a base coat of sky blue, and adding trees, animals, and plants until they end up with a forest.

The more to the centre of the ceiling, the darker the sky in the picture got, until it was like space in the middle of the ceiling.

Adding stars on the roof with white and glow in the dark paint, Ellie wipes the sweat from her forehead and steps back. "Wow" is all she manages. "my words exactly" Joel says, staring at the detail. "Well, I am going to make dinner now" Joel says.

Ellie looks at the clock on the floor. "Holy smokes! It's already 7:20!?" Ellie exclaims. "Yeah" Joel says wih a chuckle. Ellie's stomach growls, perfectly on time. "I'll get to it then," Joel says. "Wait" Ellie says. "what is it?" Joel asks, stopping. "Can I help? With cooking, I mean" Ellie inquires. "Sure" Joel says.

Joel, Ellie and Sarah go down stairs, Joel and Ellie to the kitchen and Sarah to the living room to watch television. Sarah hates cooking, so she never helps Joel in the kitchen.

"careful, this is going to get really hot" Joel says as he gestures to the pot of water on the heating element. "What are we going to make?" Ellie asks, watching Joel with great interest. "spaghetti" He says. It was a foreign word to her, she had heard of it, but never seen a picture or discription of it.

When the water comes to boiling, Joel adds some yellow sticks to the pot, from a box that says _Mario's pasta_, labelled _spaghetti_ in big yellow letters on the blue box. "We are going to eat those?" Ellie asks with a bit of disgust. "Just watch" He says as he adds some salt into the pot.

He takes some tomatoes and chops them up, putting them into a bowl for later. He grabs ground beef from the fridge and takes it off the styrofoam tray and into a big pot. He gives the spatula to Ellie. "Just keep it moving, try not to flick it out of the pot" He instructs.

Ellie nods, and with almost too much concentration, fries the meat. He adds onions and the tomatoes. He adds tomato paste, stirring the noodles. "Woah! They got all soft!" Ellie exclaims when she sees the cooked noodles.

Ellie watches, stirring, as Joel takes a big metal thing with holes in it and pours the noodles into it. Joel does a bunch of other stuff to the pot of tomatoes and meat. He takes 3 plates out of the cupboards and puts noodles on them. He takes a ladle and puts the sauce on the noodles.

Joel opens the fridge and takes the container of parmesean and puts it on the table. He and Ellie take the plates of food to the table. "Sarah! Time to eat!" Joel calls.

Sarah comes flitting in, and sits down. Ellie takes her fork and takes some noodles. She eats them, and a huge smile spreads on her face. "Damn, thats good" She tries to say, but her mouth is so full, it comes out as:"Durmph, fpharats phood". Joel looks at her and smiles. Sarah giggles.

"so, tomorrows the first day at school" Sarah says. "are you excited?" she asks Ellie. "Yeah, kinda" she says. "Tommorow I will drive you guys, but I need to go work straight after. Ellie memorize how to get to school, you need to walk home by yourself" Joel says.

Joel gets up and collects everyones plates. Ellie and Sarah go to the living room to watch TV. Joel does the dishes. When he finishes, he goes to the living room to watch too.

Joel checks the clock. 9:45. "Ok, bedtime everyone, we all need to wake up early" Joel says, turning the tv off, which in turn makes Ellie and Sarah grumble. They go upstairs, getting ready for bed.

As Ellie snuggles deeper into her blankets, she stares at the stars above her and forest all around. She doesn't show it, but she is a little worried about school. Dammit Ellie, there's nothing to be afraid of! I'm not going to die! Why the hell am I more scared right now that the time I was grabbed by a clicker!? Ellie slowly drifts asleep, and in her dreams she is still cursing at herself.

**HAI! AND THANKS VERY MUCH FOR READING TIME IS RELATIVE CHAPTER 3! HUEHUEHUEHUE SCHOOL TOMORROW FOR ELLIE! I wonder what's going to happen?**

**Feedback is always very helpful and makes me feel nice that people are actually liking it .!**

**The next chapter might take a while because:**

**1. Damn weekdays**

**2. I'm going somewhere for 3 days, and cannot bring any electronic devices.**

**3. Im just being a pussy about it but my fingers hurt from guitar learning :( (But I learned multiple song from the last of us, such as the theme, the choice, goodnight, the path, and a new dawn)**

**And I 3 spaghetti and Ellie should too!**


	4. Chicken turds

Ellie wakes up to an annoying, really loud noise. She jumps up, scanning for what is making the awful racket. Her ears zero in to her digital clock, the one Joel took from his room to Ellie's.

She grabs it and inspects it quickly. Her thoughts are moving at a million miles per hour, the blaring noise only making it worse. She finally yanks it out of the power socket. The noise abruptly stops. "And stay quiet!" she all but yells at the clock.

Rubbing her eyes, she hears chuckling. She looks to the door and sees Joel, leaning against the doorframe, laughing. "How much of that did you see?" she asks tiredly. "Enough" Joel says, smiling wide. "Well, how was I supposed to know?!" she says. "whatever, just get ready to go to school, I'l make breakfast" Joel says, while turning to leave.

Ellie sticks her tongue out at Joel as he turns. "I saw that" Joel says as he goes down the stairs. Ellie sticks it out more. Joel chuckles and then he is out of sight. Ellie yawns and goes to the bathroom. She brushes her teeth and goes back to her room.

Opening her closet door, she closes her eyes and grabs a random shirt and pair of pants. She does this every day, so she wouldn't have to puzzle over what to wear. Looking at her choices, Ellie nods approvingly. She had grabbed a blue shirt with the pattern 4 panels and a black strip near the top that says police call box. She had also took green camo khaki shorts.

She brushes her hair, struggling with the persistent knots. The hair brush is something she brought with her from the future. She takes a hair tie from a pile on her desk and puts her hair in it's signature ponytail. She freezes. Her bite looked better. As if it was just going away. She stares at it for a long time. "Ellie!" Joel calls from downstairs. She breaks out of her trance.

She bounds down the stairs and sees Sarah and Joel at the table, eating. Ellie slides into a chair and wolfs down her breakfast of french toast and milk.

When they finish, Joel tosses Ellie her backpack, filled with various school supplies. "So YOU took my bag" Ellie accuses Joel."Guilty" Joel shrugs. They go out the door and pile into the car. "I put some money in your bag to buy lunch" Joel says, fighting traffic.

Joel drives Ellie to her school first, so she would have a clear path home. "bye! And don't beat anyone up!" Joel yells out at Ellie as she walks off. Ellie smirks._ This will be fun._

Pushing open the doors, she marvels at the sight of so many people in one place._ And only kids._ She walks until she finds a big bulletin board with names and room numbers. She looks at all the names until she finds her name. _Ellie Williams_. Williams. It has been too long since he heard her last name.

The room number was A002. She turns around and asks "Where is room A002?" To a boy on his phone. "go straight, then left. The first room to the right is A002." he says. "thanks" Ellie says as she walks away.

She strides into the classroom. Kids her age are all talking or giggling to their friends. She finds a bunch of empty seats next to the window and sits down. Figuring there is some time before class starts, she opens her bag. She finds binders, a pencil case, a ruler, and a bunch of other stuff she didn't know what were.

She roots around when she comes across her comics. _Thank you Joel._ She practically sings in her head. She pulls out issue #1 of Savage Starlight, reading again.

"Savage starlight? I hear it's perfect for nerds" Ellie looks up. A girl with several girls behind her and all of them with too much makeup are staring down at Ellie. (omg soo clichè I know) "Scram" the lead girl says.

"Why?" Ellie nonchalantly says while reading on. The girls all look shocked, an expression of makeuppy horror that makes Ellie snort. "because I said so, comic geek" the girl says. Joel said she would encounter drama, but it wasn't 0.0000000000001 percent as bad as she thought it would be.

"What power do you have, to make me leave this seat?" Ellie says, her tone as bored as she can make it. "I'm Aria White. I do cheerleading and im like' the captain of the squad so I'm really strong" she says in her already ear grinding voice. Ellie snorts again. _Her? Strong? Her body is like the model's on that poster that Joel and I saw on the way to Saint Mary's hospital, it doesn't even look like she has the muscle to push over a spore._ Sure, Ellie can't do a triple backflip razzle dazzle, but she can fend off a clicker well enough.

"Ok." Ellie responds. She can see that Aria and her posse are horrified that someone is actually denying the _queen_ of her rightful seat. "Hmph, I was getting tired of that seat anyway" Aria says, turnig her chin up and away and walking off. Her posse follow with "yeah, it was so last year anyway" and "I dont even want to touch anything that girl touched anyway" and "did you see that awful scar above her eyebrow?". Ellie shakes her head and sighs, turning her attention back to her comic.

A man Ellie assumes is her teacher walks into the room. He is a wiry asian man with thick glasses. The class slowly spread out and seat themselves. Ellie puts her comic back into her bag.

"Hello class. I'm Mr. Everett, and this is your homeroom. You will be assigned lockers. Just find your name and locker number on this paper" He gestures to a paper taped to the whiteboard.

Joel drives through the morning traffic, sipping his coffee. When he gets to his destination, he parks. He steps out of his car. Stretching, he looks around. _I have never seen this place before, we were working on something smaller_. A very tall support structure lies in front of him. Joel spots Aaron, one of his co-workers. "Joel! Where were you yesterday? The boss needs to see you" He shouts in his british accent. "Ok, I'll go see him!" Joel shouts back.

Joel strides over to a shed where the boss usually is before work starts. "Mark," Joel says as a greeting, awaiting the scolding he is going to get for not going to work for a day.

"Joel! I have some great news for you. You are getting the work shifts you always wanted!" Mark says cheerfully. Joel was shocked. He had been asking Mark for the work shifts that go from Monday to Friday, and the weekends off. Mark never accepted.

"Why did you suddenly give the shifts?" Joel asked. "Ian asked for another shift and I gave it to him. So with that shift free, because you are always asking, I gave it to you" Mark explains.

Joel thinks it over. _This is good, I will have more time to spend with Sarah and Ellie._

Ellie yawns. The class is just explaining how things work and sometimes games done by the funner teachers to learn names. They got a timetable and a bunch of other papers with information. No one seemed to talk to her, but she didn't mind. The only people that stood out in her day so far was Aria, but she couldn't care less, she was only surprised about the haughtyness and stupidity of some people in this tine.

Ellie checks the clock. 10:00. She hurries to English 9. She sits down with a sigh. "uh, hi" Ellie turns her head up and sees a timid looking girl staring at her.

"Hi" Ellie says back to her. "Mind if I sit here?" The girl says, gesturing to the seat next to her. Ellie was taken aback at her politeness. "Uh, sure" She says. She sits down, but drops her tin pencil case. It bursts open, scattering various pencils and pens around.

She gasps and frantically bends down to pick her stuff up. Ellie kneels and starts to grab pencils. When they had picked up all the stuff, Ellie dropped the pencils into the open pencil case. "Arigatou" the girl says. Ellie looks at her in confusion. "Uh, Thank you I mean" She says, looking away.

"Um. Don't mention it" Ellie says. Ellie looks at the girl. She is asian, quite tall, with intelligent eyes peeking out from behind large purple framed glasses. Very straight long black hair frames her face. "What language was that?" Ellie asks. "uh, Japanese. I accidentally say things in Japanese sometimes" she says, very quiet. "cool. I'm Ellie" Ellie says, holding out her hand to the girl. "I'm Nagisa Umino, nice to meet you" Nagisa says, taking Ellie's hand and gently shaking it.

Nagisa sits down, and the teacher stands up and starts talking about English 9 and what they are going to learn, and the supplies needed. Ellie alredy had taken mental notes that she needed loose leaf lined paper (whatever that was) and binders.

A loud buzzing noise startled Ellie. She jumped, making her chair creak rather loudly. Nagisa noticed that it scared Ellie. "You don't seem very familiar with school" Nagisa pointed out. "yeah, I had never had school like this" Ellie says, getting over her mini heart attack. "Want to have lunch with me?" Nagisa says, getting out of her chair.

"Sure, where do we go?" Ellie says, grabbing her stuff and following Nagisa out of the room. "We need to go to our lockers first" Nagisa says. "Oh, right" Ellie says, feeling stupid. Ellie and Nagisa head the way their lockers are. Ellie's locker is adjacent to Nagisa's. She grabs a plastic bag with money in it.

Ellie follows Nagisa to the cafeteria. She winces at the sheer noise of the large place. They line up to buy lunch. "What are you getting?" Nagisa asks Ellie. Ellie looks at the big board with names and prices next to them. Grilled cheese sandwich and chicken nuggets. Orange juice? _Hell yeah. _She looks at her money. _Okay, I have ten dollars, that seems to be enough. _

"I think I'm going to have the grilled cheese and chicken sounds good, I've never had it before, is it good?" Ellie shouts over the noise. Nagisa looks at Ellie. "You've never had either?" Nagisa asks. Ellie shakes her head. "Well, personally, I am not the hugest fan, but generally it's good" Nagisa says.

They get their food and sit down. Ellie looks down at her tray. There is a sandwich and some turd-looking things. She shrugs. Ellie takes one o the crispy turds and bites into it. Damn, this is good. How the hell did people complain about food in this time?! Ellie starts to wolf down her food, pausing only to breathe.

Joel looks at his hands. They are covered in sawdust from sawing wooden boards to the correct length. He sits in the construction site, looking through the fence, daydreaming. His break lasts for half an hour. _I should get somthing to eat._

Joel goes to the nearest fast food place and goes to the counter. He orders what he usually gets from there and sits down to eat. As he walks out the door, he spots a woman crossing the street. He stares for a moment becuse she looks very familiar from the back.

Joel hears a car incoming and sees a car approching quickly around the corner. He sprints and grabs the woman and drags her to the sidewalk just as the car speeds by. The woman is frozen with a suprised look on her face. Joel freezes. "Tess?" he says as he lifts up a hand to touch her face.

Joel stops. _This isn't Tess. Tess can't be here._ "And you are?" The woman asks, taking Joel by suprise. "erm, Joel" He says, not taking his eyes off her face. "well Joel, thanks for saving my life"


End file.
